Conventionally, a use license associated with a software license is appended to a software medium. A user who has purchased the software installs and uses it by agreement of the use license. However, this allows the user to illegally copy and install the software.
There is also a method of making software usable by inputting an identifier such as a license number added to software. In this case as well, however, a user can illicitly install the software by copying the identifier together.
To solve the above problems, for example, the following method of granting a use license has been proposed. Target software for a license contract is partially encrypted. Based on, for example, a license number input by a user and information specific to a host on which the software runs, a license contract management server issues a key to decrypt the encrypted software. The software receives the key and decrypts the encrypted part of it, thereby restraining any other machine from executing the software (e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-078167).
There is also proposed a method of causing target software for a license contract to directly communicate with a license issuance server or a license contract management server on the Internet and receive activation of the license (e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-029862).
In the above-described prior arts, however, to receive acceptance of the license contract online, the host on which target software for a license contract runs must be the same as the host which performs the operation for the license contract. This leads to the following problem if the target software for a license contract is a Web application. It is difficult to make a license contract by communicating with a license contract management server using a Web browser that runs on a host different from a host on which the target software for a license contract runs.
Especially, when inputting, to the license contract management server using the Web browser, information such as a user's address and telephone number except information such as a license number necessary for license contract management, the Web browser must communicate with the license contract management server. In this case, license issuance is particularly difficult. This is because if the Web browser is running on a host different from a host on which the target software for a license contract runs, the communication between the target software for a license contract and the license contract management server is disconnected.